The Reinventions of Josh Ritter

From the politically charged songs of “The Animal Years” to the more playful narrative style of his new album, the singer has consciously avoided repeating the “same old act.”

Transcript

Over a year ago

TRANSCRIPT

Question: Did you
consciously turn away from political songwriting after “The Animal
Years”?

Josh Ritter: Well
I guess I just didn’t think it was, like I thought about it a lot like a
surgery, you know, like there was something there that—I remember I was,
with
“Animal Years” I had just started—when I was writing that record, I had
just
started running, and I was running and running—I was back in Idaho and I
would
go on these runs down these long gravel roads, and I remember sometimes
just
getting so angry about nothing specific.Just free floating anger, and I felt like it was growing in me,
and I
felt like “Animal Years” was about just cutting that out and getting it
out.And then once that was out, I felt
like—I felt pretty expunged and purged of it.So,
I didn’t think that was, it wasn’t like I was trying to
go out there and teach anybody a lesson, I wanted to go out and say what
I
felt... which I felt “Animal Years” was kind of about religion and
whatever a
religion is getting taken away from people, and used for kind of cynical
ends.And I thought that—but after
that I had no desire to tell people what to think.That’s
one of my big pet peeves.Like most political
songwriting I would say is just about
teaching people like they’re children or like they had never had no
experience
with the world on their own.People
believe what they believe for a reason and I just think that music is
the wrong
place to kind of teach somebody.Especially because I don’t like artists who are—you’re a
musician, you’re
not a political scientist, or... you know.

So, and then—going from that to “Conquest” just
felt like it
wasn’t so much that I wanted to stop writing political I just didn’t
feel the
drive to do that at that time, you know.And it was just really fun, like “Conquest” was a lot about—I was
working with Sam Kassirer, my piano player, and my producer for this
record as
well.And it was like I just did
an experiment and it turned into this great fun game of recording, which
was a
hold new discovery, you know, getting to work with somebody who really
got what
I wanted.

Question: What did you
set out to achieve in your new album that you hadn’t before?

Josh Ritter: I
think in a lot of ways, this was a real defining record for me, making
it.I guess the major one is the fact that
I turn 33 and I have six records out.And at the end of my last record, really I was touring a lot, and
touring and touring and I had a chance to do a lot of stuff.And kind of in the back of my mind
while I was doing it, I was thinking, "What’s going to happen now?What am I going to write about, how am
I going to keep from being just—how am I going to keep this new?How am I going to keep making new
music?" And I was worried about it and it’s just, I wrote, and wrote and
nothing
seemed right.It felt like—it just
felt like I was repeating myself.It’s like the Springsteen song, you know, “Same old story, same
old
act.”And I just always felt that
I fought to get a career where I could play music and I could do that
for the
rest of my life.And I felt like
when I got to that point, I suddenly felt like, "Do I have anything else
to
say?"It’s sort of like, you’re
campaigning for an office and once you get there, you have no idea what
to
do.

And I think that that’s dangerous and I feel like
I’ve met
people who have decided that they’ve got to that point and then they’re
just
going to play their songs that people know, their hits, and that’s it;
and they
stop developing.And I didn’t want
that to happen, so I spent a lot of time just kind of chewing on my
fingers and
then trying to make sure that, like, I could write some songs that
actually meant
something new. And out of that came eventually, out of a lot of working
and
strife, life strife, I started working on some songs, one of which was
called
“The Curse,” and it started as just the idea of a mummy’s curse and what
would
happen if the mummy and the archeologist fell in love.And
it was like—you only need one song
usually to get you going, you know, one song to make you feel like you
could do
this again and you’re not as bad as you think you are at the moment, you
know. And once that happens, the world kind of opens up.